


Fractals and Irrationals

by TheBaronsVeve



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abstract thoughts, Gift Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Sex against the wall, Sexual tension city, Terrible misuse of greek mythology, Terrible misuse of math, Tony and equations, Tony being too concrete for Loki's abstract
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBaronsVeve/pseuds/TheBaronsVeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a dreary, wet Christmas Eve, Tony utters four words that change the course of the universe. A bottle of rum later, Tony contemplates the curiosities that surround he and Loki, and why the god fled after he spoke those words into the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractals and Irrationals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Batwynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batwynn/gifts).



> For those of you who like a soundtrack, here is a little mix for the fic. 
> 
>  http://8tracks.com/thebaronsveve/fractions-and-irrationals

Twinkling lights had begun to merge together after the fifth glass of Legacy and now they had become little more than a sea of soft white amongst a much more dominant sea of green. It was a pleasant sedation that muddled his senses and turned the world around him, and the chaos in his head, to something much more subdued. Subdued chaos.  
He chuckled, darkly, before draining the remaining dregs of rum in the cup. Subdued chaos might have been words he used to describe his life. Up until a few hours ago. 

The crystal tumbler hit the table with a resounding bang and Tony uncapped the decanter, refilling his tumbler with far less accuracy for his sixth glass than his first. 

He should have known not to spring this on Loki, _fuck_ , he should have thought this through. But he was Tony Stark, and he was impulsive, even if he did think critically and analyzed _every goddamn thing_ countless times inside of his head before executing his plans. But this was Loki, who was unpredictable and was as abstract as the concept of love itself. Loki, who could not be analyzed or broken down into finer points and equations for Tony to configure into a language that he spoke. It was unfamiliar territory. 

Tony was the charted map of stars. 

Loki was the clusterfuck of a white hole.

When he lifted the tumbler, held it out at arms length and closed an eye to peer through the catspaw glass, it threw all of those twinkling lights out of sync. To his rum addled brain they looked frighteningly similar to an over illuminated universe.  
He drained the glass with as much vigor as he had kissed Loki last.  
And remembered, as the burn of the liquid sated him, what had left those silken lips last.

_“I am sorry, Anthony. I.. was not expecting this.”_

And then, in the middle of the night, Christmas Eve, the god had left the Tower and for all Tony knew, left Earth, too.  
He thought briefly about burning the immaculately decorated tree in front of him out of spite.

Loki was the reason he was sitting alone, in the penthouse of the Tower, drowning himself in twenty five thousand dollars worth of rum, sneering at a Christmas tree.  
If he thought about it long enough, Loki was probably the reason for his drinking habits at least nine times out of ten.  
Probably for his growing habit of seeking solitude as well. 

You know what? He didn't need Loki.

The chair he had been occupying clattered to the floor as he stumbled to his feet, keeping the tumbler of rum in one hand, while using the other to grasp about at the air in a vain attempt to regain his balance. When it did not work, he pitched forward, landing harshly on dark tiles, and spilled drops of amber liquid onto the floor. Approximately six hundred dollars worth of it to be precise.

He didn’t care. He was Tony Stark, after all.

Impulsive, reckless, stupid, needy Tony Stark.  
Why should the god of chaos, an ageless, utterly remarkable deity, even deign to bless him with a second thought let alone a ‘yes’ to four entirely binding words of a question?

The short answer was that he should not.

The longer answer was that he _had_ not.

With a precision that only someone who had been drunk likely more times than he had been sober in the last ten years, Tony placed the crystal glass on the floor and drug a heavy hand down his face.  
He was a man of realities, of base and tangibility. Conversely, Tony Stark was a kaleidoscope of emotion, in which no evened keel could be found.  
When Loki held him, he was grounded and those emotions fell into place not unlike the chaos of beads and pebbles beyond the looking glass of said scope. They became something beautiful together, finding balance in one another. And Tony had tried, he had tried _so hard_ to solve Loki’s equation.

Variable A:  Past hurt, inadequacies, and living a lie in a shadow.

The solution: A god with serious self-confidence issues masked by delusions of grandeur that extended only skin deep. A touch starved man hiding behind a self-made illusion. 

And Tony had thought, after weeks that became months and months that became years, that, he was Variable B. 

A broken, emotionally scarred, and sometimes emotionally stunted, functional alcoholic with a suit of armor and a head full of ideas that never quite seemed to fall into place until Variable A entered the equation.

A ragged sigh was pushed out of his lungs as he tried for the second time to rise to his feet, this time, successfully. His vision was still merging things together but that did not mean that the small, black box on the floor had gone unnoticed. But it had been rejected and now Tony could barely look at it, even if he could, in fact, see it. It only served to represent the one thing that Tony had no experience in.

The failure to solve an equation.

_Goddamnit, Tony, not just an equation. This was, he was, your whole life._

He reminded himself of this point, as he rubbed the curiously wet patches along his cheeks with the back of his sleeve.

The faint sounds of his stumbling about were interrupted by the slightest clearing of a throat. Tony spun around, tilting precariously to one side, and winced at what he saw.

Black tendrils of the most soft, luxurious hair Tony had ever had the pleasure of running work calloused hands through were plastered against an alabaster face. Thin, but deliciously pink lips, pursed lightly, beneath a perfectly aquiline nose, and _those eyes_.  Tony could lose every thought in those eyes. Brighter than any emerald, and a color that could not, in any way, exist in this realm of reality, let alone be staring out at him from behind elegant, dark lashes. Tony reigned in his thoughts long enough to assess that it looked as though Loki had spent the past few hours drowning.

Had he?

“Did you?” Tony asked, displaying his common tendency to let his mind barrel ahead of his mouth and speak thoughts he had yet to fully form.

Those utterly inhuman eyes narrowed slightly in confusion at the question. 

“…forget something?” Tony finished awkwardly, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side, nervously.

Loki shook his head gently, even so, dislodging some of the sopping hair that clung to his face. “No.” he replied, before a moment later, amending, “Yes.”

Tony made a vague gesture, indicating the penthouse’s main lounge, supplying an, “Okay.”, in a colder tone than he had intended.

But Tony made no move to leave the room, or to display any further acts of hostility. He simply stood there, swaying a bit, as he surveyed the god through tired eyes.

“Anthony…”

“Don’t. Loki, just…don’t.”

Loki looked exasperated, a pained expression corrupting that angelic face.

“Let me expl-“

“You’re…really wet. Where the hell did you go?” Tony’s voice had adopted a clipped quality to it, and he was moving towards the god before his feet had the courtesy to inform his brain of the action.

 In response to the motion, Loki’s eyes widened and he took a hesitant step back. “It…It is raining. I went for a....I needed time to think…I-“

The god found himself backing into a wall, his palms pressed flat against the cool, muted metal slab.

“Raining in New York on Christmas Eve. Who would have thought.”

Tony’s reply was a total non sequitur and he knew it. He was stalling for time as his feet carried him across the distance separating him from the dripping god now backed into a corner. The way Loki’s chest rose and fell rapidly meant that he was just as nervous as Tony, the sudden dilation of those infernal, light siphoning pupils told him that he was just as excited, too.

For what, he was absolutely positive neither of them knew.

“Anthony, Anthony…Tony….I’m…Please…I just want-“

“What do you 'just want', Loki?” He kept his dark eyes pinned on the blazing ones of the god, _his god_ as he tracked every movement Loki made, like some starved predator.

“To talk. Anthony, I want to…what are you-“ Loki’s words trailed off as Tony stepped into the puddle about Loki’s feet, his words slipping away as a result of proximity.

They were a breath apart. A whisper away from crashing into one another at an unparalleled pace and the way that Loki was nervously tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth was sending Tony into spirals of madness.

“I’m letting you talk.”

The words left Tony’s mouth a mere instant before Loki’s lips were on his in a flurry of thoughts conveyed in a way words never could be.

Tony would have gasped if Loki had not been effectively robbing him of his breath. And, as he always did, Tony gave his all, pouring himself into the moment. He placed both hands, squarely, on either side of Loki’s face, pulling him closer and finally getting to drive his hands into those messy, soaked black locks of pure silk. Loki moaned in response and placed gentle bites onto Tony’s abused bottom lip, coaxing the shorter mans mouth open with his tongue. When Tony granted him unhindered entrance, the words they had wanted to say to one another were no longer important. Loki’s hand left the wall, only to firmly grip Tony’s shirt at the shoulders, grasping at the material as if it were his only anchor in the world. The kiss continued on, messy and bordering on violent, Tony moving from Loki’s mouth and onto the damp, taut skin of his jaw, leaving bite inflicted bruises on perfect skin. With each mark, a choked sound of pleasure bubbled from Loki’s throat and Tony gave a growl, the deep vibrations in his chest resonating between them.

Tony could feel Loki’s hands beginning to shake on his shoulders, the god already peaked with overstimulation from simple ministrations. He paused his assault on Loki’s jaw long enough to draw the taller man down into an embrace that found Loki’s head resting in the crook of his neck, those long arms looping under Tony’s, impossibly long fingers lacing between Tony’s shoulders.

They stood there, breaths coming out of them both in short gasps, clinging to one another as the world around them fell away into unimportance.

Tony was the first to move, turning his head slightly to his left, whispering as he placed soft kisses against the shell of Loki’s ear, “We’re okay, Astraeus…my god of the stars. Of all us fallen stars down here..”

Loki turned his head to meet Tony’s lips once more, far more tentative and guarded than before. The gentleness and timidity was signature to the destruction of walls built around the god to shield him from hurt and an ache that no one could readily cure. Tony rewarded him with renewed insistence, drawing Loki further and further out of his own head.

Once again, Loki found himself with his back pressed against the wall, one of Tony’s hands working the buttons of his nearly see through dress shirt open, the other against his cheek, keeping their lips together. One particularly harsh nip drew a hiss from Tony and he pulled away, his features pinching into a frown. Loki tongued his own lips, a chuckle rising from his throat as he pushed away from the wall and slowly began to undo the buttons himself.

_Painfully slowly._

His half lidded eyes didn’t leave Tony’s for a second, though, and Tony gave an involuntary groan of approval at the impromptu strip tease. Finally the shirt fell to the floor in a wet heap and Tony was given an eyeful of shirtless, panting god.

“Good goddamn.”

Tony would have probably laughed at his own words had his brain not been currently hanging out in his dick.

Loki cocked a brow, his expression indicating his displeasure with the lack of physical response to his partial nudity. Tony could fix that.

Tony’s hand placed in the center of Loki’s chest pinned him securely in place, and as Tony licked a stripe up the god’s neck, Loki bucked his hips, seeking friction he wouldn’t find.

Yet.

As if sensing Tony’s plan to drag things out as long as he could, Loki roughly pulled open the fastenings of his slacks, sending a button flying away and leaving his zipper in a ruined state. He hurriedly shimmied the slacks down his long legs until they pooled at his feet and, considering he had thankfully chosen not to wear underwear that day, his cock stood fully erect, pressed between them.

Tony chuckled, tearing his eyes from those glowing emerald fixated on his to glance down at the untended length pressing against his stomach.

“Subtle, babe.” He teased, wrapping a hand around the pulsing member, the action eliciting something akin to a whimper from the god steadily coming undone from his simplest touches.

Tony tightened his fist, pumping just as painfully slow as Loki had removed his shirt. Loki growled harshly, and pulled Tony closer by his collar so forcibly that Tony had to let go of Loki’s cock to brace himself on the wall behind the god.

“Well, look who’s impatient now-“

“Stark.”

Was the only reply Tony got before his own button had been popped and his zipper split. Elegant hands made hurried, inelegant attempts to shove Tony’s pants down his legs until they joined Loki’s black slacks on the floor. Tony might have tried to pester Loki further about his lack of restraint, but when the god had spoken his surname with a voice turned rough and dark with lust, that plan had come to a crashing halt.

Before Loki could protest, Tony grabbed one of his legs and wrapped it around his own waist. It seemed that Loki was just fine with that, because his other leg wrapped around Tony and he shimmied up the wall a bit, using his hands on Tony’s shoulders to balance himself.  

Starting at the tip, Tony ran a thumb along the pulsating vein on the underside of Loki’s cock, dragging it teasingly along the hot skin, past his perineum and brushed across ring of muscle he had sought.

Loki tensed at the contact, digging his heels into the small of Tony’s back and letting a ragged, “Yes” encourage the action.

“I need-“

A small bottle was shoved in his hand and Tony liberally applied lube to the fingers of his right hand, then coated Loki’s opening with the thick liquid, earning him another hiss and a small moan.

God, he loved Loki like this. Past the point of full sentences, whimpering and keening at the smallest touches, utterly and wholly desperate for contact.

The thought turned him a bit clumsy and slid a finger into Loki without warning the god first. The response was a startled yelp and a few quick breaths, but eventually, Loki settled down and began to try and draw himself up and down on the digit. Again, Tony’s hand on his chest held him relatively still and Tony continued the motion that Loki had been trying for.  “Anthony..” his name was uttered as a whisper from thin lips that had begun to quiver.

“Yes, dear?” Was the cheeky response from the engineer, two knuckles deep inside Loki.

One eye slid open and glared at him through a lust filled haze and Tony grinned, wide.

“Alright, alright.”

A second finger joined the first and began searching for the tender spot that had always reduced Loki to languages Tony could never understand and always thoroughly enjoyed _not caring_.

The quickening breaths from his god as he thrust his fingers in and out, crooking them just so, meant that was precisely where this was headed. Suddenly, Loki’s hands hit the wall, his arms spread out on either side of him as he moaned words in that beautiful and utterly unintelligible dialect.

“Fuck, yes, babe. Just like that, huh? You’re doing so good, just be patient..” Tony was never at a loss for words, not even in situations like this. _Especially_ in situations like this.

Loki gave a drawn out “Aaah!” in response to the coaching, wrapping his legs tighter around Tony’s hips and pushing his own hips up to keep Tony’s fingers brushing against his prostate.

“No..babe..” Tony slowly extracted his fingers from within Loki and used the remaining lube to coat his own achingly hard dick. The god was insistent and _persistent_ to a fault and would keep making attempts to finish himself on Tony’s fingers before Tony even got a chance to fuck him. Not that Tony would have minded, because he would have fucked him anyways but, one of his favorite things was watching Loki come for the first time while he was drilling into him, about to ride out his own orgasm.

Loki gave a low growl at the loss of what was so pleasantly filling him up but amended his protest when he felt the head of Tony’s cock pressing against him.

“Oh, yes…this…is better..” he smirked as he replied, and Tony didn’t need any further encouragement.

He sheathed himself inside the god, the both of them giving moans that echoed off the walls and shattered the silence completely. Tony forced himself to still, letting Loki adjust around his cock, before the god began to lift himself up and down. Tony growled in protest at the attempt to simply use his cock and gripped Loki’s hips hard enough to bruise before driving into him, using that grip to lift the god and drop him back down.

“Ah! Oh, gods…Anthony…gods!”

Loki felt his back scrape the wall as he was lifted and dropped in succession and knew that if Tony kept up this pace he wouldn't last long. Maybe that was okay. He scrabbled for purchase against the wall, his hands never having fallen after they’d ended up there, and he began to come undone mere minutes after Tony breeched him.

Loki had remarkable stamina, befitting of the god that he was, but Anthony Stark’s touch was jolting electricity, pushing him to the brink and dragging him back again before he was even aware of it.

He let his head fall back against the wall, too, and was too contented with being fucked into oblivion against the hard surface to even care for the nonsense spilling from his lips. Loki clenched around Tony, urging him on and drawing Tony closer to his climax as he knew he was drawing near to his own.

“Fucking….fuck, Loki. Stop doing tha-“

Loki felt the unparalleled sensation of the thick cock within him press into his prostate and he ceased to breathe. Tony kept his rhythm up, kept his positioning dead on and continued to slam against the area that was causing _that look_ to take over Loki’s face. His eyes were blown wide, his mouth open, and his eyes beginning to roll back.

Tony wrapped a hand around Loki’s neglected cock and gave a few swift tugs, watching closely as the god tumbled over the apex, giving a shout and then a long, high pitched whine as strips of white painted Tony’s grey shirt and leaked onto his hand. The god continued to pant, but his head lolled about, his chin hitting his chest and his shaking hands moving back to grip Tony’s shoulders. Tony’s thrusts picked up as he felt warmth pool in his stomach and his balls tighten up, their pace moving from a punishing precision to a messy staccato. With a shout, he emptied himself inside the still blissed out god, who spoke his name like a plea as Tony finished.

When they had both been granted pause, Tony’s knees began to shake and he lowered them both to the ground, his spent cock still pressed into the warmth of Loki’s body. Neither of them could take a full breath quite yet, and neither of them truly seemed to care about the mess that coated the god’s thighs as Tony pulled out. Loki winced a little and shifted his position, leaning forward and nuzzling against Tony’s chest. Tony, who could barely keep himself propped up on his elbows, just let him.

“Good talk?” Tony asked, when he was finally able to speak again. Loki groaned and moved back into a rather demure kneeling position in front of Tony.

“Very.” He affirmed with a little smile, before shakily rising to his feet, using the wall for support.

There would be more to say, of course. Many more things to say, and debate, and likely storm off over, but right now, standing above him, entirely naked and entirely stunning, Loki was far too beautiful to berate.

Loki stared at Tony for a few minutes, the unabashed way he was entirely comfortable with his lack of modesty bringing a strange yet endearing quality to the moment. “Coeus…” Loki spoke in a soft tone and extended his hand to Tony, who gratefully accepted and was pulled to his feet.

“Are we going to have this conversation nude and half nude, respectively?” Tony questioned, lightly, indicating Loki’s nakedness and Tony’s general lack of pants and come stained shirt. 

Loki smiled, the familiar, amicable sparkle returning to his eyes. “No, I suppose not.”

Tony gave a long, truly joyful laugh before peeling off the shirt and letting it join the other clothes on the floor, strutting across the penthouse without a shred of decency or clothing on himself. “You know, you must be something unnaturally hot because copious amounts of rum generally make for a lack of…”

Tony spun on his heel and mock glared at the man gathering the pile of sullied clothes from the floor.  
“You magicked my dick, didn’t you?” he pointed an accusing finger at the god, who had decided to play dumb and blinked, innocently.

“Who, me? Why no, Anthony, I expected you to be able to get it up regardless of how entirely drunk you were.”

Loki quirked a grin, emerald eyes narrowing to create a look of utter mischief, something so signature and charming about the god. “Besides, if I recall correctly, it was I who was accused of suffering from such ‘performance issues’.”

With a pretend scowl, Tony waved him off and snagged a gold embroidered housecoat from the back of the couch. “Performance issues my ass. More like whiskey dick, and besides, it clearly didn’t make a difference if I’m going by the sounds that came out of that gorgeous mouth of yours.”

“I thought you said you drank rum?”

“Doesn’t sound as good.” Tony pointed out quickly, as he tied the coats belt around his waist. He knew that the box was mere feet away, still on the floor, still taunting him. He shuddered even thinking about it.

“Look….Loki….” he began, not entirely sure where he was even going to go at this point.

Because, there was an unknown variable in his equation. There always had been. Beyond A and B the Solution, there was something irrational, and entirely abstract. There was love, and passion, and everything completely incalculable between them. There was X.

And Tony, for the first time, still could not figure out how to solve for X.

“I did not come back for the sex.” Loki spoke softly, now looking a little more than awkward standing in the penthouse, naked, while Tony had the upper hand in a housecoat. Tony winced a little and motioned for Loki to put his pants back on, only to remember they were soaked with rain and hurriedly retrieved him a dry pair from the master bedroom. As soft cotton slid over pale hips, Loki continued, “I was never going to leave. I was simply unprepared for your…question.”

Well, that had been obvious. Whether it was the way Loki had paled completely, or his sudden evacuation from the Tower, something had tipped him off to that.

Tony cleared his throat, eyes stuck on the damnable black box. “So…are you better prepared now?”

Loki drug a hand down his chest, an unconscious motion that spoke of his hesitancy.

“I do not know.”

Tony opened his mouth to reply with something snarky and entirely uncalled for but, thank the gods, Loki spoke instead.

“Allow me to explain. I am ill equipped to respond to your question…as I do not wish to be bound to you for merely the extent of your, rather limited, mortal life.”

Tony felt his mouth open. So, that was it, Loki _didn’t_  want him.

'Wait, no, Tony, say those words again in your head.'

Something about ‘merely mortal’ and ‘limited’ conveyed the message well enough that the genius, turned equation solver, stiffened in realization.

“You don’t want to lose me.”

Loki’s gaze darted away from him, settling somewhere behind Tony on the tree. So that was it.  Loki didn’t want to make the commitment that involved peeling away every protective layer and giving yourself wholly to another, only to have that other unceremoniously ripped away thousands of years before his proverbial time. Perhaps, Loki truly did see him as a star. A dying star, who’s essence was fleeting and as he shone, was only steadily burning out. Maybe Loki considered Tony in fatalistic terms, where the god was grasping at the mortal as though he were nothing more than beautiful remains. By seeing him through eternal eyes, Loki could have considered Tony as already gone.

“I…can’t believe..I didn’t think of that.” Tony felt his cheeks begin to redden in embarrassment and shame at his complete lack of insight. That was a variable he had not even considered.

Loki shrugged, uncharacteristically sheepish, and wandered over to the black leather couch with his eyes still unfocused.

“Did you really think I would say no on the basis of not wanting to marry you, Anthony?”  
Loki asked softly, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth again.

Tony shrugged, bent down and finally wrapped his fingers around that black box of sorrow, much to his own disdain, and popped it open.

A diamond sunk into a silver band stared back out at him, mocking him in his abysmal mortality. “Yes. No. I don't know.”

He heard Loki stand, and felt those long fingers wrap around his own, the god giving no adverse reaction to the ring this time, busying himself with inspecting it.

“There are…imperfections.” Loki murmured, leaning heavily against Tony.

“Uh, yeah. There are.” Tony replied, sparing the god a slight glance in which they shared a brief look of affection. “It is imperfect. And…you know, Loki, you know I am the least sentimental person, but I wanted it to be imperfect because _we_ are imperfect. But still…we’re enough.”

Loki gave an undignified snort. “How eloquent.”

Tony gave him something akin to an affectionate sneer, as dichotic as it was. “I try. But do you understand?”

Loki just nodded thoughtfully in reply, as he slipped the ring from within the box and slid it up a tapered finger, holding it out at arms length with a smile that shone nearly as bright as the imperfect diamond.

“I do, Anthony. And…as for my answer..shall we say that I am undecided inasmuch as I do still promise to be yours.”

Tony wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, he forwent words and pressed his lips against Loki’s jaw for the third time that night, placing gentle kisses there in place of tender words that would only complicate things.

“I can live with that, for now.” He said, in between pecks. “And then…when the time comes…we can figure it out.”

Careful not to step in the rum still puddled on the floor, Tony walked Loki backwards and onto the couch, settling into his lap, and all but straddling him as they both admired the ring on Loki’s finger.

“Want to know why I chose that one?” Tony pushed his hands back through Loki’s locks, his dark hair already starting to curl from his jaunt in the rain. Loki hummed appreciatively at the gesture, pushing back further into the couch until he was all but embedded in it, purring at the light touches that had turned into more massaging than placating.

“Mmmm…oh yes, do tell.” Loki spoke his words against Tony’s throat, pink lips seeking olive skin.

A shiver went racing down Tony’s spine at the feel of Loki’s silken lips on him, but he went on with his story despite _insistent_ distraction.

“I held all of them up to the light. All the imperfect ones I looked at. This one-“ he took Loki’s hand in his, guiding it upwards until the diamond caught the refraction of one of the bulbs nestled into the tree. “-looked the most like a galaxy when I held it up. A galaxy that was full of fallen, broken stars that were maybe already dead, but maybe not.” He added a little to his explanation, watching the way the god’s eyes lit at Tony’s expression of his understanding. “And that one dark area, there-“

He pointed out a deep blot in the center of the diamond, where the light did not seep through.

“Coeus.” Loki breathed out the name with a reverence often reserved only for worshipping gods. And he was referring to Tony; Tony, who was the center of his universe, which everything else revolved around. Tony, who was as much Loki’s god as Loki was Tony’s.

“Y-yeah. That’s Coeus. The center. And you? You're the..”

Tony really didn’t have to finish. Loki knew. He was the one who commanded the stars, held them in place. He was the sky itself; the dusk.

Loki captured Tony’s lips, a reprise of the kiss they had shared earlier, but pulled away long before their affections turned heated, even though Loki had already begun to lightly grind his crotch against the man straddling him.

“I love you, Loki.”

The god smiled, a genuine, bright smile that would have stolen the final iotas of life from those dying stars. His fingers laced around Tony’s back and pulled him close, melding them together in a conjoining of a universe and it's center, and the darkness that held it all in place.

“And I you, Anthony. My darling star of the evening.”

Loki traced the glowing reactor, peeking out from behind the woven housecoat, near mesmerized by the light.

“My Coeus. My center.”

And Tony knew he did not need to solve any equations; not any longer. Abstraction, in it’s own way, was beautiful and confusing, and had proven to be occasionally superior to concrete thought and concept.

A + B  ≠ Solution

X is not concrete.

And above all, Tony would love Loki until the day he died. Until his light burnt out and he truly was nothing more than an essence of his former life.  
And whether this was ten thousand years from where they sat on the leather couch in Stark Tower, or twenty…Loki would love him, still.

**Author's Note:**

> -KOIOS (or Coeus) was one of the Titan gods, sons of Ouranos (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). He and his brothers conspired against their father, laying an ambush for him as he descended to lie with Earth. Four of the siblings were posted at the corners of the world, where they seized hold of him and held him fast, while Kronos castrated him with a sickle.
> 
> In this myth the brothers apparently personified the great pillars which occur in near-Eastern cosmologies holding heaven and earth apart, or sometimes the whole cosmos aloft. Koios' alternate name, Polos ("of the northern pole"), suggests he was the Titan of the pillar of the north. 
> 
> -ASTRAIOS (or Astraeus) was the Titan god of the stars and planets, and the art of astrology. By Eos (the Dawn) he was the father of the seasonal Winds and the Stars. The arrival of these Winds was heralded by the rising of certain constellations, an astrological deity and the Titan-god of the dusk.
> 
> So, this was a gift for the lovely Batwynn that got way out of hand. I apologize for the ranting and rampant self-philosophizing but I hope you enjoy it <3


End file.
